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Monday, March 04, 2013

Pigs!

Stephen Nadler at the ever reliable Attempted Bloggery reminds me today, March 3rd, is Ronald Searle's birthday!
See a celebration of swines over at Stephen's top knotch blog on cartooning and illustration here

Searle was, of course, famous for his cats but there were other creatures he drew almost as often. These include dogs and birds (which each deserve a post of their own) but curiously pigs too.

In fact Searle archived his sketches by animal category and the folders were labelled accordingly. This folder contained sketches of pigs for various projects and also reference photos. Typically Searle would sketch from well researched reference and evolve the cartoon design.

Variations on the 'Moment of Reflection' (1972)

The piece appears to be a potential New Yorker cover proposal?

Sketch for Searle's 'Swine Lake' lithograph

Sketch for Searle's piggy version of Fragonard's 'The Swing'

'Mislaid Masterpieces: SWINGER by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806)

Despite its vivacity and virtuosity, this painting (c. 1765) was heavily criticized at the time, for not being sufficiently vacuous. Furious, Fragonard revised the subject as L'Escarpolette, (Wallace Collection, London), in which he placed even more emphasis on the bestial behaviour of the participants.'

-Ronald Searle: In Perspective

Also published as a lithograph in the 70s

Here we see an amorous pig rejected by its pachyderm object of desire in a storyboard for an animated spot produced with Ivor Wood

'Adoration'

The following are from Searle's sketchbook for his 'Zoodiac' book

'Gourmand'

'PigSty'

'The Sensitive One'

'Déjeuner sur l'herbe' (1976)

The following were published in 'The Square Egg & the Vicious Circle' 1968

This pig sleeps well while unnervingly sharing the room with a butchered human!

'This work was drawn in 1974, and it was edited in the
back cover of the French magazine Le Fou Parle, issue number 9, in
January 1979.' - ecc

We shall end this porcine birthday post with the idealized pig of Rome-ham Antiquity (sorry!)

3 comments:

Zoodiac is quite the bestiary with each sign of the zodiac represented by a different animal. I'm surprised to learn after all these years that, as initially conceived, Searle represented Libra with pigs. This actually makes a lot of sense, given the scales and Searle's corresponding gags about overweight and balance. Ultimately, though, Searle assigned Libra to his cats, his most popular animal creations, and the drawings work splendidly this way too. Zoodiac has always been a favorite of mine, but I hardly expected to gain new insights into the book from your post on pigs!

About Me

I am a story artist working in the animation industry. I retain all copyrights to original artwork & material posted on my blog.Copyright for the GARY & Ronald Searle blogs is held by the respective artists.